Hiya -- it's been a while since I posted but here's true ghostly tale from the convenience store checkered streets of Tucson, AZ --

The Circle K Phantom -- as told to gvh by Wendee

My friend Wendee used to do the clerk thing at various convenience stores in town to get herself through college. This time period of jumping around from 7-11 to Quick Mart to Circle K's lasted roughly from 1990 to 1992. Wendee's first gig was at a little Circle K (a highly visible convenience store chain, especially here in the southwest) in a somewhat quiet neighborhood on the southside of town. Her shift lasted from 10 pm to 6 am - yup, you guessed it - the graveyard shift.

At first things were somewhat busy. A road construction crew was building an offramp to one of the main freeways in town at night and so Wendee experienced brisk business from the husky and burly folk. The work was done about a month later and business during that time reduced significantly. In order to pass the time, Wendee brought in a small clock radio to listen to late night talk shows. Occasionally during mopping detail, Wendee would tune the radio to top 40 radio. She noticed over time that the radio's volume would go down slowly until it was inaudible. Wendee would then simply walk over to the radio and turn it up again. Again, over a period of about an hour, the volume would go down. As the days went by, Wendee began to notice that the radio would completely shut off when she tuned to the Top 40 station. Despite the fact that the radio was brand new, she took it back home where it operated perfectly. So then she took in a boom box and the very same phenomena occured. However, Wendee would hear signals and "noise" coming from the stereo even though it was shut off and sometimes even when it was unplugged. She eventually took the stereo home where it worked fine. Spooked but far from calling in parapsychologists, Wendee decided not to listen to top 40 or any radio at all and the occcurences stopped.

A few months into her employment at Circle K #168, Wendee began to get the feeling that she was being watched. She had just stopped dating a very possessive man at the time and she confided in me that she felt that he might be stalking her. There were times she felt that she was being watched from across the street. One night, she looked out the window and saw a small man who appeared to be hunched over sitting at a bus stop bench across the street. The man appeared to be looking into right into her direction. Later, she figured that the man had been sitting there for about three hours. A few hours before dawn, a police officer came in for his nightly dose of coffee and snacks. Wendee asked him if he could go speak to the man who was sitting across the street because she felt uncomfortable with his peculiar behavior. THe cop looked at her oddly and asked "What man?" Wendee, the image of the man staring her right in the face, pointed and said "THAT man". The cop insisted that he could not see anyone although it was plain as day for Wendee. The cop promised he'd be on the lookout for anyone suspicious and left. Wendee swears that the man dissappeared moments after the cop left.

The man would re-appear from time to time and Wendee would attempt to take a picture of him or go outside to try to confront him. By this time, she was convinced that something ghostly was going on. After a time, the man wasn't seen by Wendee ever again. Yet strange occurences still went on. At first it was a few strange noises - some bumps and clicks - then it was things falling off shelves and the video game getting unplugged. Pretty soon Wendee felt like a babysitter for a bored ghost. She eventually got used to it and called the ghost "George", her dead brother whom she believed the ghost was. One night, the milk guy came in with a shipment. Wendee went back to the rear of the store to open up the refrigeration storage area. Wendee was bored so she decided to chat with the guy and help him unload. Expecting him to come through the rear, Wendee was startled when he come through the front. He looked at her a little curiously and asked her "What's the deal with your boss?" Not having the foggiest idea what he was talking about, Wendee responded "What boss?" The milk guy explained that there was a strange looking man in a Circle K shirt with a sour look on his face. The guy then went on to describe the man as having a hunchback and glasses (the man across the street). Wendee just about peed in her pants upon hearing this and went out to look at the counter only to find no one there.

After that night, Wendee decided that her days were numbered at Circle K #168 and she gave her two weeks notice -- partly because of the ghostly stuff but mostly because she got a job at a 7-11 during regular day hours. The day before she left, she found herself very tuckered out and tired around 4 am. She did not look forward to the fact that she would start her new job that very day at 8. Around 4:30 am, a group of young ruffians came into the store and bought a variety of cokes, candies, and nachos. The stood around the magazine section and chomped away at their goodies. Wendee watched them carefully but soon found herself falling asleep. A few moments passed and she fell asleep. Maybe five minutes pass and she is awakened by the noise of a paper boat of nachos hitting the floor. The boys are nowhere in sight and there's a big cheesey mess on the floor. Wendee looks up at one of those circular mirrors to see if the boys are up to some kind of scheme and she notices a dark figure for an instant. Wendee goes out to the aisles to investigate but finds no one and nothing.

About a year after her stint with Circle K, Wendee ran into her old boss at a bus stop. They chatted for a bit and the boss mentioned that the store was shut down about three months after a big AM/PM (another southwest convenience chain) opened up and pushed it out of business. He also mentioned that they could never keep anyone to do the graveyard shift and that he thinks Wendee worked it the longest - four months. He also mentioned that she broke the record set by the guy who worked it before her - a small nearsighted hunchbacked man named Jerry who had been shot and killed in an attempted robbery a month before Wendee started work there.

More stories to come.....

Cheers,

Gabe(br> gvh@helium.gas.uug.arizona.edu